More plane time

Things I've learned thus far:

-They actually only show one movie on international flights, and it's only after they feed you and turn out the lights

-This movie is not a movie of your choice. There is one movie, and one movie only. And while this movie may have been interesting sounding because it has the mom from The Parent Trap in it, it is far less interesting after you've been flying for so many hours and are sleepy and curled up with a blanket.

-There is more than one channel on the radio on the plane. While none of the channels are anything like American Top 40, there is no need to listen to opera for several hours when there is actually Vivaldi playing on another channel. I really wish I had known this earlier. At least I caught some Chopin.

-The news program they were showing, it has sound! There's a music setting for the headphones, as well as a TV setting and the TV setting has options in English and German. This may have been useful. I was wondering how we were supposed to tell what was going on in the world.-They feed you a lot on airplanes. While the food isn't horrible, people don't eat meals two hours apart regularly.

-If you don't finish a glass of wine, the airline hostesses look at you oddly. Airplane wine is quite a bit different than the wine I've had before.

So after countless hours of flying, (really only around 10) but lots of taxiing and layovers, my trip has almost begun! Ugh. we're supposed to fill out a form right now, making sure we don't have Swine Flu. Really? I don't forsee this flu becoming a big problem. It's another bird flu scare all over again, except this time it's pigs. I mean, in comparison, how many people die each year of influenza? And how many have died of Swine Flu? Exactly. Not to belittle the lives of the people that have died, but there are bigger epidemics to worry about.

I think they said we're somewhere over Austria now! Sweet! So I've decided I love Germany and totally want to go there for grad school. Just to find the right school now...

This trip is turning out to be surprisingly awesome! I've been hanging out with Liz, the first person I met at IUP, Rose, Ginny, and Hannah. Yay upperclassmen. Steve's been around quite a bit too. I dont' think it's hit me yet, that I'm so very far away from home. Perhaps it's because I'm sitting here, sipping a Coke and looking down on lakes, farms, houses, and lots of trees, a scene that could be in the U.S. just as easily as anywhere else. Maybe Turkey will be really different, but I doubt it. The only thing different thus far is language.

I sat next to Heather for the long flight to Frankfurt, but haven't been around the other students since. on the flight from Frankfurt to Munchen, I sat next to a business-y looking man who wanted nothing to do with an American teenager and just read his paper. I don't think he spoke English, as well, which may have been the difficulty. And my German's not exactly at a conversational level...But right now, for the flight to Ankara, I'm sitting next to a very nice woman from Cologne, who's going to Turkey for some business function to give a speech. Yikes!  But I bet that's a pretty sweet job that flies people all around the world like that. Yay planes. So much time with people in tightly enclosed spaces...my favorite. Only another hour and a half or so on this flight!